To celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, I knew I had to cook up an Irish feast. When Americans think of Saint Patrick’s day, we typically tend to think of Corned beef and Cabbage as being the meal to eat. However the people of Ireland do not eat Corned beef and Cabbage. A quote from the article “Is Corned Beef Really Irish?” illustrates why Americans think of Corned Beef as a Saint Patrick’s day tradition.
Yet, the corned beef the Irish immigrants ate was much different than that produced in Ireland 200 years prior. The Irish immigrants almost solely bought their meat from kosher butchers. And what we think of today as Irish corned beef is actually Jewish corned beef thrown into a pot with cabbage and potatoes…
The Irish Americans transformed St.Patrick’s Day from a religious feast day to a celebration of their heritage and homeland. With the celebration, came a celebratory meal. In honor of their culture, the immigrants splurged on their neighbor’s flavorful corned beef, which was accompanied by their beloved potato and the most affordable vegetable, cabbage.
The article goes on to further state that the main thing eaten on Saint Patrick’s Day is usually lamb or bacon. Knowing that, I decided to make the National Dish of Ireland, Irish Stew.
This was my first foray into using lamb as the feature meat of a dish. Lamb is hard to find, I had to go to a Whole Foods type store to find the lamb and it was expensive. It was pretty and looked like a nice steak.
Lamb was not the only ingredient that was new to me. The dish called for Leeks and Parsnip which I had never used before. I had an idea what Leeks look like because of the Pokemon Farfetch’d( I am ashamed to admit that). The only problem was that they were only sold as packages of two giant Leeks.
Parsnips were confusing because there were many things that looked like them, I can’t remember but I was convinced Daikon radishes were another name for Parsnips. I am very glad that I didn’t make that mistake.
Cooking the dish was no challenge at all. To start I simply chopped everything that needed to be chopped, to note the lamb fat was very tough and I trimmed most of it off of the meat. Once everything was chopped, all that needed to be done was to simmer for about an hour. When the hour was up, I added the potatoes for 15-20 minutes.
While that was simmering I made Irish soda bread. I thought this would a nice accompaniment and it’s always fun to make homemade bread. Currants are not as common as Raisins however and will probably need to be purchased at a speciality store(it’s where I found mine).
Both the Irish Stew and the Soda bread were amazing. The lamb was so tender and had a very nice mild flavor.The most amazing thing was that the stew was very light and did not leave you feeling bloated. The orange zest and the currants provided a nice fruity undertone to the bread.
In the end, all my guests were happy and it was a successful St. Patrick’s Day
Recipe for the Irish Stew is available here and the recipe for Irish soda bread is here.
In case you want to read further, you can check out the article “Is Corned Beef Really Irish?“